Faculty Research Seminar: 'The Pirate Ideology: the universal enemy in international legal thought’'

Speaker: Tor Krever

The seminar will be chaired by Eilis Ferran.

Tor will be discussing his book project, which develops a materialist history of the pirate in international legal thought. The book reconstructs the conceptual history of the pirate, analysing the theorisations of legitimate and illegitimate maritime commerce offered by international legal thinkers in their political-economic contexts. Against common assumptions that the pirate is a timeless legal category stretching backwards for millennia, he suggests that the modern juridical image of the pirate, as the enemy of trade, took shape and crystallised only in the long-16th century, the product of this particular juncture reflecting inter-imperial rivalries and emerging merchant capitalist interests.

Lunch provided. These sessions are intended for members of the Faculty and PhD students.